Someone Bought AlternativeFacts.com and Is Oddly Redirecting Traffic to NYT’s Story

And it wasn't the Times

The New York Times published an article Sunday about "alternative facts" after Kellyanne Conway, senior advisor to President Donald Trump, hours earlier characterized dubious stats from White House press secretary Sean Spicer that way.

Later on Sunday, someone bought the web domain www.alternativefacts.com, which has been redirecting visitors to the Times' article. "The Times did not purchase the URL," Linda Zebian, the newspaper's director of communications, said in an email.

So, it appears someone—an internet troll or a prankster, it would seem—purchased the domain from GoDaddy in order to … mock the article? Or perhaps the person wanted to promote the piece. Who knows?

On Sunday, Conway was speaking to NBC's Meet the Press host Chuck Todd and defending Spicer, who the day before seemed to have claimed Trump's was the most-attended inauguration in history. That claim appeared to be false.

UPDATE: Spicer, in a press conference on Monday, stated that he intended to mean more people watched Trump's inauguration—whether on TV, on the web or in person—than any other inauguration in history.

At any rate, Conway's attempt to recast Spicer's initial, clumsy statements as "alternative facts" inspired criticism, mockery and many a social media reference to George Orwell's 1984. (The hashtag #alternativefacts trended nationally on Twitter.)